


All of your pieces

by fandammit



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Dad!Kane, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-22
Updated: 2016-06-22
Packaged: 2018-07-16 16:35:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7275694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandammit/pseuds/fandammit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She can’t help but notice the way her mom and Kane lean on one another - the way they pause a beat to let the other have their say; the way they both contribute to each decision made.</p>
<p>There are easy touches between the two of them now, an intimacy that she only recognizes because she used to see it between her parents.</p>
<p>She wonders what else she’s missed, while she’s been away.<br/>--------<br/>Clarke watches her mother fall in love. Set during and immediately after season 3.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All of your pieces

There’s a heaviness in her bones that she doesn’t know how to get rid of. An ache in her chest that feels like her heart is both trying to disappear and turn itself into stone.

She wants nothing more than to lay down and rest for the next three days; knows the moment she closes her eyes all she’ll see is the bodies of 300 burned corpses, slumped over their last meal. Feels like she’ll never be able to clear the image of Jasper’s weeping figure, the accusation in his eyes.  

They stop beside a creek to rest. She leans against a tree, casts her eyes over the group to try and distract herself from a decision that’s all but made.

Her eyes find Kane sitting close enough to brush his legs against her mom’s prone form. She watches as he smiles at her mom, small but genuine; sees his hand twitch in her direction before he balls it up in a fist. When the guards come to raise the stretcher, she lets out a small sound of surprise when her mom reaches out to clasp Kane’s hand in her own.

She stands still for a moment, chewing her lip, when she hears a rustle behind her.

“He begged Cage to stop,” Raven says quietly, her eyes following Clarke’s gaze. “I thought he was going to break his wrists trying to get to her.”

She recalls the tight look of panic, the rigid lines of desperation in his stance - visible even in the grainy resolution of the 100 year old camera feed.

She’s not sure what to make of it. Doesn’t quiet know how to feel about the way he’s staring down at her mom with a tenderness that somehow doesn’t feel incongruous, despite what she knows about him. Part of her is wary; a small bit of her might be upset. Mostly, though, she feels grateful that someone will be there to take care of her mom when she knows she can’t be.

* * *

Later, she finds her way next to him; spares a glance at their clasped hands before moving her eyes over her mom’s sleeping form.  

She reaches over and brushes her forehead gently, chokes back a sob at all she had to lose in order to save.

“You did what you had to,” Kane murmurs softly beside her. She turns sharply towards him, wonders at the empathy in his eyes until she realizes - he alone understands the weight of 300 corpses.

She nods. Locks the part of herself away that wants to collapse in misery; ignores the pieces of herself that want to be angry at him, at herself, at the hundreds of her people that surround her.

Finds relief in the fact that he doesn’t offer her forgiveness.

(It’s not his to give, and she wouldn’t accept it anyway.)

* * *

Truthfully, there’s nothing she wants more than to collapse in her mother’s arms, forget anything about clans or coalitions.

But there isn’t time.

So she stiffens her spine and closes that part of herself away again, offers the option of a plan that isn’t an option at all.

She feigns impatience, acts and reacts as a leader instead of a daughter; knows that’s the only way she’ll be able to shoulder the burden she knows she must continue to carry.

She can’t help but notice the way her mom and Kane lean on one another - the way they pause a beat to let the other have their say; the way they both contribute to each decision made.

There are easy touches between the two of them now, an intimacy that she only recognizes because she used to see it between her parents.

She wonders what else she’s missed, while she’s been away.

* * *

The car ride back to Arkadia is at turns triumphant and defeated.

Mostly, it’s just exhausted.

She keeps replaying the empty smile on her mom’s face. The utter alien nature to her expression.

Suddenly, a thought occurs to her.

“I didn’t see Kane. When I was at camp.”

Even though she was only at the camp briefly, his presence seems glaring in her memory. With a start, she realizes it’s because the last few times she’s seen her mom, Kane has been standing next to her.

She wonders when it became expectation to see them as partners, rather than the exception.

At his name, Octavia raises her head.

“Your mom helped him escape. When.“ She looks away for a moment, visibly hardens her stare. "When they were all under arrest.”

“Why didn’t she go with you guys?”

Octavia shrugs.

“He wanted her to. We all know that he never would’ve left her if he could help it.”

“What do you mean?” She asks, though she already knows the answer. Or at least - thinks she does.

Octavia is quiet for a moment. She shoots Raven a look, as if begging the question off to her. Raven bites her lip, then leans forward towards Clarke.

“He loves your mom.” She lobs it carefully at her, looks closely to see her reaction.

Clarke almost wants to laugh - at the absurd fact that none of this is absurd at all. Still, she has to ask -

“How do you know?

Raven and Octavia exchange a glance.

“It’s obvious.” Octavia pauses, then levels an even stare at her. “To anyone who’s been around, at least.”

_It’s obvious to anyone who hasn’t been around, too, s_ he wants to say, but doesn’t. 

Instead, she leans back and closes her eyes. Wonders if she should be angry. Wonders why she isn’t. 

* * *

It’s approaching midnight, but she knows she’ll find no rest tonight.

She sees Kane up ahead of her, his figure standing out in the gloom underneath an empty crucifix. He’s staring at his hands, a subdued version of the expression he had worn in the throne room. A mirror to the one her own mom wore when she awoke from the City of Light.

She walks up to him and stands silently beside him; reaches down to re-wrap the fraying bandages around his wrists.

After a moment, she looks up at him. 

“Why did you take the chip?”

The answer seems self-evident, but for the simple fact that she knows physical suffering alone would not have convinced Kane to give up his freedom. There’s a deeper, niggling thought in the back of her mind that she wants to satiate.

He’s quiet for a moment, staring blankly to an empty courtyard to the right of the cross, eyes flashing at some painful memory.

“ALIE threatened to kill your mom. I couldn’t let that happen.” He clenches his fists and looks fiercely at her. “I’d never let anything happen to her. Not if I had the power to stop it.”

She nods. Tries to convey just how much she understands what he means by force of the sigh she exhales.

They both let the moment lapse into silence.

Then -

“You love her.”

It’s not a question but he answers it anyway.

“I do.”

She finds it to be neither a shock nor a source of discomfort; rather, it’s a final confirmation to a foregone, long foreseen conclusion.  

She’s quiet for a moment, trying to discern the slow spread of emotion emanating from within her. Realizes that it’s pure, blissful relief in that fact that now she has someone to share in her love. Someone who understands the lengths she’d go through and all she’d endure.

It makes her feel less lonely than she has in a long time. Weightless and taken care of in a way she almost can’t remember.

“Ok,” she says, then closes her eyes. After a moment, she leans over and lays her head on his shoulder; feels a ripple of surprise run through him.

“We’ll figure it out, somehow,” she breathes out, unsure of what exactly she means or if it’s even possible; all she knows is that for this one, sacred instant, she finds herself feeling safe and warm.

He shifts and wraps an arm around her shoulder, rests his head gently atop hers.

“We will,” he says firmly, his voice soft but sure. Steady in a way so few things are, now.

For the moment, it’s enough.


End file.
